Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

It is difficult to disagree with many of the points made by speakers across the House. I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Bill. Yesterday I chaired an important meeting of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Environment and Climate Action. Senior officials from the SEAI were at the committee to discuss the progress they are making and the challenges they face in carrying out their ambitious task of overseeing the upgrading of 500,000 homes to B2 standard by 2030. The policy and plan are clear and SEAI is moving strongly in the right direction, but the officials pointed out their ability to deliver was somewhat constrained by the fact that our economy is at full employment and the labour market faces shortages. I do not want to single out SEAI because this challenge faces all sectors, not just the retrofitting sector.

As a Government and Oireachtas we have set ourselves the monumental task of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030, based on 2018 levels. I will not say it is easy to set targets, but it is certainly more difficult to plot the path to achieving them and more difficult still to stay on that path.

The offshore wind challenge vies with the retrofitting one as being the largest infrastructure project in the history of the State. We have brought in special framework legislation and set up new State agencies to oversee Ireland becoming a net exporter of energy. That will be a total change from our current status, where we import more than 90% of our total energy. We will need thousands of planners, ecologists, engineers, technologists, administration staff and human resources personnel for his sector. We need to train our citizens and develop a workforce that matches the needs of our rapidly changing economy and society but, being at full employment, we have to look overseas and enable the people with the skills we need to come here and help us achieve our critically important objective. The skills we need are in short supply across Europe because we are not the only ones embarking on a radical and necessary transition.

We have to be creative in how we attract people to this country. Ireland is an attractive country to come to for many reasons. I do not need to go into those because we are well aware of them. However, we have to remove the unnecessary barriers. I will not repeat the points that have been ably made by colleagues across the House but I do not think it has been mentioned that it is not as simple as inviting people over and giving them work visas. New workers will bring new families and they have a major demographic impact. In the last five years, the population of Ireland has increased by about 10%, and that is beyond the projected increases of Project Ireland 2040, the national planning framework. It has put immense pressure on our ability to house people and provide adequate health, education, childcare, public transport and other services. These new people coming to Ireland will put further pressure on those services, which are at breaking point.

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